LONGMONT -- When school started in the fall of 2005, two St. Vrain Valley School District's elementary schools offered preschool.

This year, all 26 traditional schools and three charter schools offer preschool for 4-year-olds.

And, in the traditional schools, every preschool class is taught by a teacher certified in early childhood education, something the district requires even though Colorado requires only credentials in child care or child development, or an associate degree in early childhood education.

St. Vrain's emphasis on early childhood education started in 2006 when Don Haddad was an assistant superintendent.

Haddad, who became superintendent in 2009, said this week that preschool and full day kindergarten are important because they are the first steps in a child's education.

"When (students) start right off with a high quality preschool and kindergarten program, ... they're going to be more successful throughout every phase of the system," Haddad said. Paying for preschool is more efficient than financing remedial classes later, he added.

In Laura Lawrence's preschool class at Frederick Elementary School on Tuesday, her 15 students were in small groups throughout the room while she worked with them one by one on writing.

The 4-year-olds attend class half a day, four days a week. Eight are there because their parents pay tuition; the other seven come in through the Colorado Preschool Program, which provides preschool to children from low-income families and other at-risk situations.

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To the naked eye, preschool might look like it did years ago.

On a carpet in the middle of the room, Victoria Vasquez, Kasandra Flores and Jovanny Rios built a house with Lincoln Logs.

Jovanny said it was going to be a big house; Victoria said four people would live there, and there would be lots of room to play.

Such play actually fits in to several preschool standards: gross motor skills, cognitive skills and social/emotional abilities.

An opportunity to develop social skills occurred when one student began crying. Lawrence moved to the carpet and quickly learned he was upset because Victoria took some Lincoln Logs he'd been playing with.

"Tell Victoria why you're sad," Lawrence told the boy.

"Did you hear what he said? He said you're taking his sticks," she told Victoria.

Later, Lawrence took a small group of English-language-learners to a corner where they sat on pillows and read "The Three Little Pigs."

With a large picture book facing the students, Lawrence read the story and asked questions: What happened first in the story? How many pigs are there?

On a felt board, Victoria and Kasandra put up pictures as the story progressed: the pigs, then the straw house, then the wolf.

Quietly, Lawrence made notes. In an email, Lawrence later wrote that she also takes pictures and makes videos to help her track the children's progress.

Such notes are how preschool teachers assess their young students, since having them sit and fill in bubbles on standardized exams isn't practical.

"It's a lot harder to be assessing every day," said Janet Gutman, director of early childhood and special education for the St. Vrain Valley School District.

Students are evaluated based on "widely held expectations," much as a medical doctor compares a child's height and weight with those of others the same age.

District assessments from 2011-12 show that the percentage of preschool students who meet or exceed those expectations in language, cognitive, literacy and mathematics skills is much lower among at-risk children than among those who pay tuition.

When they leave, however, the differences have shrunk such that the percentages of at-risk children and the tuition-paying children who meet or exceed those expectations in cognitive and literacy skills is the same.

In math, a large gap still exists between the percentage of at-risk and tuition-paying children. However, the percentage of at-risk children meeting or exceeding expectations increased from 19 percent to 88 percent, according to the district.

With preschool and full-day kindergarten, at-risk children can be ready for first grade and, more importantly, reading at grade level by third grade.

"When kids have both of these, we can see a difference," said assistant superintendent Connie Syferd.

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